HM Treasury

Contingencies Fund Advance: Help to Buy ISA

Lord O'Neill of Gatley: My honourable friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Harriett Baldwin) has today made the following Written Ministerial Statement.The Help to Buy: ISA was announced in the March 2015 Budget. Under the scheme first time buyers purchasing a property in the UK will be able to save up to £200 per month in a Help to Buy: ISA and receive a bonus of up to £3,000 The bonus amount is calculated as 25 per cent of the balance in the buyer's Help to Buy: ISA, (with a minimum of £400 and capped at £3000). The bonus will be paid upon the completion of the purchase of an eligible property. The Help to Buy: ISA has been available since 1 December 2015 and 200,000 accounts have so far been opened. The first homes to be acquired using the scheme are expected to be purchased in early February 2016. The resources for the bonus payments will form part of HM Treasury’s Supplementary Estimate 2015-16, which is expected to achieve Royal Assent in the associated Supply and Appropriation bill in mid to late March. HM Treasury will therefore be utilising the Contingencies Fund to make the initial bonus payments that become payable prior to Royal Assent. Parliamentary approval for additional resources of £20,000,000 for this new expenditure will be sought in a Supplementary Estimate for HM Treasury. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure estimated at £20,000,000 will be met by repayable cash advances from the Contingencies Fund. 


This statement has also been made in the House of Commons: 
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Foreign and Commonwealth Office

National Memorial to British Victims of Overseas Terrorism

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Honourable Friend, the Parliamentary Under Secretary for State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Tobias Ellwood), has made the following written Ministerial statement:Today, the Government is launching a public consultation to help inform the creation of a National Memorial to the British Victims of Overseas Terrorism.We are all aware of the devastating terrorist events that have taken place overseas in recent years, not least the atrocities in Paris. Following the terrorist attacks in Tunisia last year, my right Honourable Friend, the Prime Minister, announced that funding would be made available for a memorial dedicated to UK nationals who have been killed in terrorist atrocities overseas. My right Honourable Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, also announced in the Summer Budget 2015 that the National Memorial would be funded by banking fines (Official Report, 8 July 2015, col 326).We are launching this consultation in order to gather views on how the National Memorial should be developed. We recognize that, for many, this will be a sensitive issue. We have worked with the Victims’ Commissioner, Victim Support and the British Red Cross, and with representatives of victims’ families to ensure that the consultation allows people to express their views, whilst remaining as sensitive as possible to individuals’ circumstances.We propose that the Memorial should be an enduring physical memorial that allows those affected to reflect upon their own loss in a way that is meaningful to them. We should not attempt to prescribe the nature of events, or the loss experienced by families and friends, in a rigid way. Consequently, the Memorial should carry a dignified inscription to the victims of overseas terrorism and should not bear individual names or terrorist events.The consultation will ask respondents whether they would prefer the National Memorial to be in central London—where it might be seen by some to give due prominence to the memory of those who have died—or at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire—a peaceful location for personal reflection at the heart of the United Kingdom.The consultation will be open for 6 weeks until 4 March 2016.


This statement has also been made in the House of Commons: 
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